Principle

The Notifications tool gives users of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites quick updates about actions that affect them. These notifications can help users become more aware of events that relate to them and take quick action if they want to.

This software was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation's editor engagement team and now the Collaboration team, to encourage people to participate more actively on Wikimedia sites. Notifications are designed to replace or augment existing notification systems on these sites, as well as provide significantly more control to users.

Before Notifications, the only notifications that the MediaWiki software provided were given through emailed notifications for changes to your watchlist, and an orange bar for changes to your user talk page. The watchlist is quite helpful, but its format is limited. It works well for changes related to pages, but not so well for changes related to users. At the same time, there's no granularity: if a page is watchlisted, you are informed about the next change that happens to it. If a page is not watchlisted, you receive none. Watchlists are useful, and they work well for the job they were designed for, but they don't encompass the whole scope of on-wiki activity. Notification's features, in conjunction with watchlists, can provide a better user experience. Users are able to learn about more events, more easily, and have greater control over what types of information they receive.

Use

Notifications are for all registered users of Wikimedia sites. Unregistered users cannot get notifications (except for talk page notifications, which are still shown to anonymous users in an orange bar).

Notifications fly-outs

Alerts and notices warnings

Alert badge

Notice badge

When someone takes an action that affects you on a Wikimedia site, colored badges will appear next to your user name, in the top right corner of any page of that site (top left if your wiki is using a right-to-left language). These notifications include cross-wiki notifications. When there are no notifications, these badges are grey.

The first badge (red, "alerts") contains most important notification types: new messages on your talk page, mentions, etc. The second badge (blue, "notices") contains less important notifications: pages links, message on other talk pages, etc.

These badges will show the number of new notifications you've received. Clicking on the badges will display a fly-out listing the most recent notifications (see screenshot) and set the badge color to grey again. The number will stay different from zero until you mark-as-read all your notifications for this badge (especially for messages).

You can click on the notification of your choice to find out more about it (see description below). To see all notifications received, you can click on "All notifications" to go to the notifications archive.

Detailed notification layout

Mark notifications as read and unread.

Here are the most common notifications you can receive. They are all designed with the same pattern:

An icon floated on the left (on the right for right-to-left languages)

A circle floated on the right:

filled with blue if the notification is unread

white and circled of grey when read

Primary information: Notification title, in bold

Secondary information: Notification details (optional)

Details: at the bottom, with some useful information:

always the user who performs the action (with a link to their userpage) and date in a relative format

sometimes other information, like the targeted page

if needed, a three-dots menu with some options

The whole notifications is a link, usually to a diff that is related to the action you are notified about.

Similar notifications or notifications from other wikis are grouped.

Special:Notifications page

To find all your recent notifications, click on "All notifications" in the fly-out to go to the Special notifications page. On that page, all notifications are displayed by date. Your most recent notifications are listed first on this archive page. On Wikimedia wikis, that page also regroups cross-wiki notifications.

Cross-wiki

Cross-wiki notifications are displayed on both panels, and regroup notifications from other Wikimedia Foundation hosted wikis. By this way, you can receive notifications about Commons when you are on Wikisource. Learn more about cross-wiki notifications.

Preferences and settings

Access to preferences

You can control what kinds of notifications you get (and how often) by updating your notifications preferences. To check your settings, click on "Preferences" in the fly-out (shown above) – or in the "All notifications" archive page. (You can also click on "Preferences" in the top right of any page, then select the "Notifications" tab.)

Opt-in and opt-out

If you opt-out of any type of notifications, then these notifications generated while you were opted-out are not generated for you and not stored in databases. Opt-in will not display them afterwards. The only notifications that may be displayed are the one that existed before the opt-out.

Notifications by email or on wiki

To turn notifications on or off for any category, simply check (or uncheck) the box next to it. You can enable (or disable) notifications on the web or by email for most categories. (Some notifications cannot be disabled, such as changes to your user rights or new talk page messages: these notifications are too important to be dismissed.) You can also control how often to receive email notifications, from single emails for each event to daily or weekly digests. When you're done, be sure to click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page to update your preferences.

Muting users

You can mute on-site notifications from individual users, by typing their username into the box at the bottom of the notifications preferences. When you start typing the usernames will autocomplete. Users without JavaScript should type one username per line, without any wikitext or prefix.

You will still receive notifications if a muted user writes or participates on your user talk page (no matter if the page uses Flow or unstructured wikitext), or reviews a page you have created. Watchlist behavior and emails are not affected by the mute list.

The muted user will still receive a successful mention notification, if they've enabled that preference. A user's mute list is private from all other users on the wiki, including administrators or any other functionary.

Muting pages

Muting pages is possible for "page linked" notifications.

You can mute "page linked" notifications for a page by typing the page name into the box at the bottom of the notifications preferences.

When you start typing the page titles will autocomplete.

Users without JavaScript should type one page title per line, without any wikitext or prefix.

Community blacklisting

Feedback

We'd love to hear what you think of notifications. To discuss your suggestions with other users, visit this project talk page.

If you find a bug, you are welcome to report it here on Phabricator. However, we appreciate that Phabricator isn't exactly the easiest system to use; you can also drop the report (in any language) on the project talkpage, with a screenshot and information on your browser and operating system :).